


Alone Together With You

by belladeum



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials Fusion, Alternate Universe - Human, Gen, GerEng Week, M/M, arthur is a cheeky lad, i'm playing loose with that concept though so whatever, it's an HDM crossover yay!, it's not really slashy they just become friends, ludwig is confused by arthur (who is a cheeky lad), this actually takes some of the plot elements of HDM but is set in a world more like ours, who needs backstory when you can just put arthur and ludwig on a cliff and have them become friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-16 03:40:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18513172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belladeum/pseuds/belladeum
Summary: A head of tawny hair appeared from round the tree trunk, gaze intent and mouth set firm as Ludwig locked eyes with the stranger. He couldn’t have been older than Ludwig, with that thin face and large, pronounced ears. The eyebrows, too, added to the bizarre mix of features being so dark and heavily set above his eyes. Eyes with irises the colour of verdancy that stared at Ludwig long and hard.Ludwig stands alone with his daemon and thinks about the future and what he wants. Arthur crouches alone with his daemon and dwells upon regrets he will not voice. || Reupload. Written for GerEng Week 2016, prompt: Eagle. ||





	Alone Together With You

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "Eagle" for GerEng Week back in 2016. This particular fic is set after a certain event that Arthur is involved in. I may upload the other snippets of the series (which I never finished), some of which would be "prequels" to this and others unrelated but set in the same 'verse, but if there's enough interest maybe I'll fill in the missing gaps, and maybe even do a sequel.

It wasn’t so bad, having your soul ascend, soar, swoop, break and lie still on the lifts of hot air, even if you couldn’t really _feel_ all those things the same way. An eagle had been the last thing Ludwig had expected really, but there it was. It was fact, and that was actually comforting, and there was naught he could do about it – the lack of control was less comforting. But still, despite the oddity, she was loved. Priscilla was grand and stubborn and like Ludwig she was hard to talk to, but they didn’t need to talk an awful lot. Ludwig wasn't familiar with the sound of his own voice unless it was dismissive or occasionally barking an order at incompetent “peers”.

“Priscilla,” he called, and she adjusted a few feathers to arch down and land on the turf a few feet away. Ludwig felt the hurt in his chest lessen. Having a bird dæmon was nice, but one couldn’t really enjoy the sensations of flight with them when you were limited by how far apart you could be. Ludwig envied witches for that. She preened a few feathers and looked back at him. Ludwig could feel her gaze, her silent question, but declined to comment one way or the other. He sighed out over the cliffside. He didn’t mind heights, which was good, because out here beyond the edges of their little town and a good half-hour hard walk from the nearest house was the only place Ludwig could be alone, and where Priscilla could fly properly without risking disturbing anybody else’s dæmon or person. The sky was clear today, it normally was, and the sea was calm. Down the sheer rock face populated by squabbling birds and hardy plants Ludwig hadn’t yet learnt the names for, the water swelled and burst against the cliff. Priscilla clicked behind him.

“Let’s go back,” Ludwig said, not moving from his spot, feet still pushed together and arms crossed. He didn’t particularly want to return back home where his brother, dear as he was to Ludwig, was sure to fuss over him and complain about his wandering off again, on edge ever since an incident involving his friend’s dæmon some time ago – apparently they’d disappeared for some time and come back “changed”. He didn’t know what that had meant. As in, they’d grown up and stopped playing along with Gilbert? It wasn’t hard to believe. But his brother seemed to be talking about his friend’s _dæmon_ , and that didn’t make any sense at all. Had they come back with their dæmon different from what they had settled as? Impossible. Talk had ignited of some sort of resurgence of stealing children “just like before in the Capital” but Ludwig hadn’t known anything about that either. So many things he didn’t understand. What was the point of Gilbert protecting him if he was to be flung into a world he wasn’t ready for? Not that he belonged in it anyway. Ludwig sighed and pulled his knees to his chest, bracing himself on them as he straightened up. They clicked disdainfully, but Ludwig was glad to be stretched out. If he could only lift his arms to the updraft and fly far away from all this noise.

Priscilla hopped up onto his outstretched arm and settled on his shoulder. She was still a little large, so it was awkward to tilt his head out of the way of her proud chest, but he was grateful to have that comforting weight of his other half beside him. He turned away from the cliff, feeling Priscilla’s disappointment. He’d wanted to spend more time alone, too, but sometimes he hated that. Hated being alone with his thoughts.

“We have company,” she said, not all too loudly, in case she was heard, and Ludwig stopped. He turned to look about, but the cliffside was empty.

“Where?” he muttered.

“Over there. Crouched on the other side of that tree. A boy.” Priscilla relayed this information with a tone of indifference that Ludwig knew masked the same curiosity that he felt. Ludwig couldn’t recall meeting someone else up here, lest Priscilla had just neglected to tell him and Ludwig himself hadn’t noticed. Turned out that was the case. “He comes here often, from up the west bank.”

“Hm.” Ludwig furrowed his brows. Annoyed as he was at this revelation and disgruntled that someone could have just seen him spending such time alone when so many of his peers were socialising and doing normal things, Ludwig knew she would have told him of this other boy’s existence if he had been spying on him or such. This gentle prompting was enough to encourage Ludwig to at least get a glimpse of this stranger, alone together with him on the cliff.

“Is he still there?”

Priscilla took flight with a rush of air and force that almost made Ludwig stagger as her claws lifted away and plopped down onto a grassy tuft. Ludwig felt his chest tighten – a pain like heartburn but also deeply unsettling, like being lost or hearing noises in the dark. Ludwig got the message and trundled after her, trying to seem as reluctant as possible. Curiosity be damned. Satisfied, she took off again and gently landed in the scraggly, leafless tree she’d pointed out earlier. Not exactly what Ludwig had intended, but then again she was like this. Always pushing at his boundaries and comfort zone, where he was happily tucked away thank you very much.

From the foot of the trunk a pair of eyes looked up to the sound, and narrowed upon Priscilla.

“You’re a dæmon.”

“I am,” she replied.

A head of tawny hair appeared from round the tree trunk, gaze intent and mouth set firm as Ludwig locked eyes with the stranger. He couldn’t have been older than Ludwig, with that thin face and large, pronounced ears. The eyebrows, too, added to the bizarre mix of features being so dark and heavily set above his eyes. Ludwig couldn’t tell their colour, only that they were trained on him, and that he felt very under scrutiny. Why should he be judged – this boy was the one intruding on his time. Besides, his dæmon was the one at fault for flying over there and dragging him along completely unnecessarily and without him wanting to. Curiosity was fine up until it led to something.

“Priscilla,” he called, voice stern, ordering her return. She gripped tighter onto the branch, quite content to test Ludwig’s patience to the limit without even denting hers. Ludwig scowled and marched, arms swinging, over to the tree. He hated when she did that.

“Sorry—” he started, then was silenced by those narrow untrusting and poisonous eyes. It almost sent a shock through him. Why should a boy he didn’t know glare at him so? His eyes were searing. Eyes with irises the colour of verdancy framed by pale lashes and thick brows that stared at Ludwig long and hard. The boy’s mouth was set in a thin line and his lips pale.

Ludwig regained his composure and settled into his guard, an upright body and raised chin, voice ready to speak politely, yet powerfully. He could seem threatening, even scary if he put his mind to it. That’s probably why he was in this position of having to come to the cliff by himself and lament and think and think and think and wish for something more for himself.

“Yours?” the boy asked needlessly. He cocked a brow, too, as if he were surprised that Ludwig’s dæmon was an eagle. His voice did not betray incredulousness, though, didn’t betray anything. It was as if the question didn’t mean an awful lot to this boy.

“Yes,” Ludwig replied. “Priscilla.”

The boy nodded. Then he turned heel and crouched again by the tree as if Ludwig was no longer there.

Ludwig was baffled. He didn’t know what this behaviour meant, but he understood the impression of wanting to be alone well enough given his experience. He could feel Priscilla wasn’t going to budge, however, and was about to think of something to do about that, preferably on the other side of the tree, when Ludwig was distracted by a distinct shuffling at his feet. He looked down to where a small brown creature was poking its nose around some dry leaves – presumably the few that once belonged on the tree – back legs against a root it had just scaled over.

“Hello,” Ludwig said softly to the hedgehog. He heard a scamper and looked up. The boy was leaning over on his hands and knees, arms outstretched towards the animal.

“Sorry,” he muttered and pulled it close to him. His voice juddered, and Ludwig thought maybe that this strange lad _wasn't_ younger than he was. He couldn’t tell.

His dæmon. Ludwig could tell now that the animal was not just that, but a part of that boy’s soul. The scrawny blonde boy, with dirty knees and inflamed flaking elbows put his dæmon back on the ground again after a few words whispered into its ear, and went back to ignoring Ludwig, while his dæmon went back to crawling back towards him again. This was peculiar, and Ludwig didn’t like it. He didn't like new situations, especially ones that made even less sense than most new things that he presumed others thought “ordinary”. Is this what it looked like when Priscilla tugged him places and interacted without him? Weird. With nothing else to do, he swung his leg over the root and down into the sunken patch of dirt, and sat down. He could try this. The boy’s dæmon looked up at him, nose twitching.

“Hello,” he ventured.

“Hello. Arthur doesn’t want me to talk to you,” the dæmon said, in a voice that was larger than their body and distinctly feminine. It was an inquisitive voice, very soft and ready to comfort or apologise, quite unlike Priscilla’s deep and confident tones. “He’s rolling his eyes now.” Ludwig looked over to where the boy – Arthur, apparently – was huddled, and saw his mouth was set even tighter and his cheeks tinged pink.

“Then, surely you should respect his wishes to be alone and not talk to me?”

“Oh, he doesn’t want _that_. But yes, I probably should. But also it’s good to talk and I’m sick of not talking. I’m sick of not having someone to speak to.”

“You speak too much,” the boy said. His voice was all rough and sandy-sounding, and sharp. He still wasn’t looking at his dæmon or Ludwig. He’d directed the statement downward between his knees.

His dæmon ignored him back and spoke again to the bemused Ludwig. “So what brings you here? The day is nice enough so I suppose that’s a good answer.”

“My dæmon...” Ludwig said, feeling ready to drift into a daze. Even his voice sounded a bit far away, like a whisper. On cue, Priscilla made her way to the ground, alighting on the arched root beside Ludwig then joining the fellow dæmon on the flat dry ground below. The hedgehog dæmon snuffled about Priscilla’s feet before turning back to Ludwig.

“Could you lean a little closer, so I can better see what you look like? My eyes aren’t the best.”

Ignoring the odd bristling feeling he got from Priscilla – it felt almost like restlessness – Ludwig bent over so he was folded double and his face was about a foot away from the small dæmon.

“Hmmm...” the dæmon hummed, scrutinising Ludwig like the boy had done. He blinked.

There was a flash of darkness and grating noise in Ludwig’s ears.

Ludwig yelped and fell back, heart pounding and head throbbing from the collision with the grass, and far away he could hear a soft laughter that he recognised as Priscilla’s, and a cawing-guffawing noise that was alien to him. No, that was laughter, too. Must be from the other dæmon. Ludwig shot onto his feet, ready to anger. The boy was snickering too.

“Sorry,” Priscilla said, and shuffled about. If she could look sheepish then that is what this display was. Sheepishness. Good. She should feel bad, pulling a trick like that. Ludwig let go of his annoyance towards her after a moment and turned to the others.

The boy’s dæmon was perched as a magpie upon the messy tangles of the boy’s head, and Ludwig was taken aback. So he _was_ younger than him? Certainly he didn’t look it at first glance. Although now that Ludwig decided to study him, his face held youth and still some childish roundness Ludwig knew his no longer had. He looked a little shorter, too, though Ludwig was rather tall, chasing his brother’s height closely, so that didn’t count for much.

“That wasn’t very funny,” was all he could think to say, but he said it as sternly as possible, so that was good.

“Sorry,” the dæmon said. “But you should know that she was in on it, too.”

Ludwig didn’t want to react to that. But the guilt was there, a little of it, in Priscilla. Ludwig couldn’t have stayed mad at her anyway besides. The boy, Ludwig noted, didn’t apologise. But he seemed a little more at ease.

“You know, we’ve seen you up here before,” the dæmon continued.

“ _Fortuna._ ” A warning, a plea, from the boy with sandy hair.

“Do you come here to be alone, too? Oh, my manners! My name is Fortuna. And this—” she pecked at a clump of hair between her black wrinkled toes “—is Arthur.”

“The jig is up,” the boy definitely named Arthur sighed, and made to sweep his dæmon from off his head, but she had already fluttered away. Fortuna landed beside Priscilla and nipped at the glorious brown feathers adorning her body. If they were getting along, Ludwig supposed, surely that meant this Arthur was not opposed to a conversation? That was probably why Priscilla had dragged him here after all. To try and socialise with a similar person.

“So... you’re Arthur?”

“No, I'm Patrick,” came the retort, sharp and dripping with sarcasm. Obvious enough. “Yes, my name is Arthur. Fortuna told you.” That part sounded annoyed. Ludwig found it difficult to keep up with so many switching emotions. The boy looked at him, his bright eyes now softer, rounded, though something in them still unsettled Ludwig. “And you are?”

“Ludwig.”

“Ludwig.” Arthur said his name a little wrong, but Ludwig didn’t want to correct him. He wasn’t sure how to proceed. Arthur seemed to sense this, and said something offhand.

“So, Ludwig, are you new here?” He sounded bored. Ludwig knew his voice sounded exactly the same when he was forced to talk with others.

Why did he ask if he wasn’t interested? Ludwig puzzled this over, and as he decided not to reply Priscilla did so for him, settling onto his shoulder.

“We moved to England a few years ago. Ludwig goes to school in the town over.”

“Oh,” Arthur said. He grinned. “So you’re one of those grammar boys.”

“He’s only teasing,” Priscilla whispered, and Ludwig felt calmer. With Priscilla here he could keep in touch of who Arthur was really. She was far more astute than he was.

“Um, yes. I go to St Maycroft’s. I guess you go to school right here?”

“Yup. I’m not a smart-alec.” Arthur was looking at him now, properly. The wildness in his eyes seemed to have receded, retained only in his tangled mess of hair, all clumped and full of split ends. The rest of him was messy – something Ludwig didn’t like – and thin and knobbly. Ludwig could tell he was indeed not only taller and broader, but neater by far. It felt strange for him to be standing on the raised grass while Arthur was cross-legged on the ground besides what Ludwig could now tell was a little mound of dirt and sticks decorated by a fan of leaves organised by colour, so Ludwig stepped down to join him, balancing on his feet so as not to get his trousers dirty. The lovely swash of orange and yellow besides Arthur made him feel better.

“Say, isn’t your dæmon heavy? She should be smaller.”

“She’s settled. It’s okay.”

“Oh.” Something dropped in Arthur’s voice and eyes. It wasn’t sad. It wasn’t.... accusatory either. Or angry or bored. Resigned? Yes, Ludwig thought. He was resigned. Like how Ludwig was resigned. Weird. And the fluttering eyes made him feel guilty. “It is odd though isn’t it? She _is_ quite large – I’m always getting comments about that. I think maybe that means she’ll fit okay when I’m older.”

Arthur looked a little better after that, and Ludwig was glad he’d blurted something out like that. It wasn’t untrue either; just last week yet another student who he didn’t know had scrutinised Priscilla, like she didn’t belong with Ludwig, that it didn’t make sense, and so Ludwig had glared at them. Ludwig could tell that had made them reconsider.

Arthur hummed to himself, or maybe to Ludwig, he wasn’t sure. He just hummed.

“So I suppose you’re Mr Popular at school, huh?”

Ludwig quirked a brow. “Pardon?”

“You know,” Arthur mumbled. He glanced up and Ludwig suddenly noticed his gaze was piercing again, and his lashes a lot thicker than he realised, though still pale in colour.

“I don’t know what you mean. I’m not popular,” Ludwig answered plainly. It hurt a bit to say, but only a bit. He was just being honest, and there was no shame in the truth, even if he sometimes wished it otherwise.

“I _know_ ,” Arthur said. Ludwig could now see a flush apparent in his cheeks, sprung out of nowhere the colour of the newly blooming roses his neighbour tended to in the back garden, and Arthur’s face was contorted. His fingers were clenched too, so Ludwig thought that it might have been pain Arthur was experiencing.

“I know,” he repeated. “I was being sarcastic – sorry. Guess you didn’t realise.” Arthur chuckled to himself sardonically.

“Oh.”

“I’m not popular either. S’why I’m out here doing nothing.”

“You’ve organised the leaves – that’s something. I like them.”

Arthur stared for a second, then shook his head and chuckled. Priscilla nipped at Ludwig’s ear affectionately, but for some reason it felt like she was laughing at him, too.

“What do you want from this?” he hissed at her, feeling more stupid by the minute spending time talking to a strange boy who obviously wanted to know the leaves better than himself, despite his growing interest in Arthur.

“Pardon?”

Ludwig blushed and stammered, not realising he’d spoken so loudly.

“No— I, um— Sorry, I was addressing my dæmon.” Priscilla made a point to remain silent. There was a long and uncomfortable one that followed onwards between the two boys, Ludwig staring at his feet and Arthur, he could tell, at him. The wind was still too, which was odd for the coastal cliffside, but maybe the tree was sheltering them from a softer breeze.

“Is it nice? Having a bird dæmon?”

“Yes. Although it would be better if we could be further apart. Feel like flying more.” This was still small talk. Idle chatter. It didn’t matter. Ludwig could tell this much at least. He glanced to Priscilla where she was almost pawing at the ground, black claws brushing aside dead leaves almost daintily. She cocked her head towards him.

“Fortuna got away.”

Ludwig blinked. He decided Arthur would be better for conversation right now. Priscilla was being distinctly unhelpful.

“Is it strange being settled?”

“Huh? Oh.” Ludwig laughed a little. Always this question from those younger than him; the ones who found comfort in his stature and authoritativeness rather than unease. “No. It feels natural. I almost don’t really remember what it was like when she wasn’t. It’s like trying to think back to before you learnt something, or before you knew the alphabet.”

Arthur pursed his lips and nodded his head. Again, Ludwig had to look away from those eyes. This quiet was too long. Arthur hadn’t spoken but he had replied. _He_ had to say something else now, didn’t he? That was how conversation worked.

“Well, um, what about you? What do you think your dæmon will settle as?”

He hoped the question didn’t sound as awkward as he felt asking it. He didn’t really care about Arthur’s dæmon settling, so it felt disingenuous to be asking about it. What’s more, it wasn’t his business. Nor was it a topic he liked talking about. But it was that or prattle on about something completely unrelated but far more interesting, he supposed. He really just didn’t know what to say.

“Say,” Arthur whispered, voice high and curious and conspiratorial. Ludwig gulped and looked to him. The boy’s eyes glinted and his fingers curled into the grey material of his shorts, frayed at the ends and creased where creases shouldn’t be. The air grew still and Ludwig felt Fear slide a hand down his back. He bit back a stutter, more afraid now than he was at the prospect of meeting some stranger on the cliffside not a few minutes ago. He knew Priscilla felt it too. The great bird had stopped preening her feathers and scouring for Fortuna in a failed game of hide-and-seek and was now staring intently at Arthur, her eyes cold and vicious. While she was wary and ready to fight if needs be, more than anything she was afraid too. Afraid now of this strange boy and his grip on Ludwig. Arthur gave her a passing glance before twisting his feet in the ground and shuffling forward to face Ludwig with only a few feet between them. Ludwig beckoned his dæmon over with a flick of his finger against his polished black shoes, and she hopped to his side. She huffed, and whispered something to herself, but Ludwig didn’t dare look down to see what she had obviously spotted with those keen eyes of hers, nor did he risk asking her. While he was unnerved, he wasn’t a coward and Priscilla could fight it she had to – but Arthur didn’t seem threatening. Just something about him felt _off_ all of a sudden. Like the temperature had dropped.

Arthur spoke again, voice hushed. “I’ll tell you a secret if you tell me.”

A threat? A contract? Or just some strange game befitting a strange boy? A moment passed. Ludwig shared a look with Priscilla, and then with his shoes. He looked at Arthur’s knees, scraped and decorated with fine particles of soil, and was distracted by movement just below his focus. A tiny nod from Arthur’s dæmon. He looked back up to Arthur, waiting and hunched over, and set his expression, calm and undeterred. Priscilla understood.

“That sounds fair,” Priscilla replied evenly. Though Ludwig had agreed to push forward, he still wasn’t so sure. It seemed like an odd deal, and with Fortuna now spotted, curled around Arthur’s leg as some kind of snake Ludwig couldn't identify the species of, he didn’t feel any more at ease or trusting. Regardless, he was thankful his dæmon had spoken for him, because she sounded far braver than he felt, perhaps even than she herself felt. Arthur nodded and exhaled, a slow and steady sound through pursed lips, pale and chapped.

“I’m nearly 16.”

Now why would that be a secret? Ludwig couldn’t figure out why this would be considered something to hide or important enough to treat like a secret. At first he was confused, but then it dawned on him after a moment of frowning and flicking his eyes to the ground; it was there he saw Fortuna, Arthur’s dæmon, and he realised that Arthur was older than he thought. He definitely didn’t look it. And within that same thought Ludwig was shocked to understand that Arthur was _15_ and his dæmon _hadn’t settled_. That was bizarre. Most dæmons were fixed by now, and late-comers switched rarely, if at all, before settling. Ludwig had seen this boy’s dæmon flicker from form to form with ease! Ludwig gulped in this secret and held his breath in the grip of those frail, piercing green eyes. Arthur seemed to sense the understanding in Ludwig, because he then reached out and grasped Ludwig’s wrist firmly. It was tight, and his skin was grubby and clammy and hot. Ludwig felt Priscilla’s unease multiply his own, but he was oddly fascinated by the touch, too.

“Now you tell me yours.”

Ludwig paused to consider this. A secret didn’t have to be something hidden or unobtrusive or bad did it – merely something unknown to others. Something he hadn’t _told_ anyone. By those standards some of his most intense and blatant feelings were secret, maybe even his name.

“I—” he hesitated. He didn’t want to back down. He wasn’t a coward, though he didn’t think it would be cowardly to hold his tongue, but it wouldn’t be fair, and Ludwig didn’t abide that. No, he just couldn’t think of what to say. Something that ashamed him, maybe. Because why else would Arthur have told him something like that? Maybe, he thought, licking his lips, it was because it was something he’d wanted to tell someone desperately. Maybe it was because it burdened him, and he wanted someone to know. He wanted to not lie to people about his age, to have to hide himself or be ashamed of what stood him apart. Maybe he wanted to not be alone. Ludwig felt a stirring in his chest.

Arthur thought of him as kin. They were the same.

“I come here... because I want to be alone. I want to get better at being alone. Because I don’t have any friends to be with.” Ludwig looked down at his feet when he spoke. Arthur had managed to look right at him when he confessed his secret. Maybe that made him a coward after all. He heard Priscilla click her beak by his ear, and her weight shift. A display of comfort that no-one else would notice.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” Arthur said.

Ludwig looked up. Arthur smiled, a cheeky, wicked grin but a genuine one. His freckles danced on his cheeks as his lips pulled upwards.

“You’ve got me.”


End file.
